Regardless of the ease with which a decision is made, when aiming to nudge a consumer in a particular direction, what matters most is the final choice.
According to the results, the fifth hypothesis is confirmed in that the higher the nutritional distance between the two items of a pair, the more likely the revisited item is likely to be chosen.
This result appears unsurprising when reflecting on the fundamental reason why upgraded items are created. Assuming that a large part of these food decisions is taken based on health benefits, the worth of an upgrade is literally the value of its nutritional distance to its classic counterpart.
Admittedly, even in the case of lower distance pairs, participants were still more likely to choose revisited items than classic ones, however, any institution which would wish to maximize the popularity of an upgraded item on the market would do well to ensure that it differs from its regular version by an unambiguous margin.
Still, that correlation tend to suggest the existence of a reluctance toward upgraded items among some participants that becomes balanced and overcome as the worth of the upgrade grows.
Conclusion
After several decades of creation of upgraded food items by the processed food industry, starting from the low-fat products of the ‘80s to the more recent gluten-free products, the trend does not seem likely to end soon. Understanding how decisions regarding this specific class of items are made therefore seems like a promising topic.
As previously studied by the existing literature (Schulte-Mecklenbeck, 2013; Gigerenzer, 2011), this study confirms the prevalence of decision strategies making use of limited searches and of unequally weighted attributes.
However, in the context of upgraded food items, more likely to be found and purchased in the aisles of grocery stores, the prevalence of limited searches and of between-option searches shows the inadequacy between the way nutritional labels are displayed and the way information regarding nutritional attributes is processed. While all nutritional information is available to consumers, the placement and numerical nature of nutritional labels make difficult the assessment of their preferred product by consumers, whatever the attributes they value the most.
While it appears unsurprising that an item being revisited with better values in its macronutrients and calories attributes is more likely to be selected along those criteria – particularly so in the case of fats – it is interesting to note that participants seem to prefer the ingredient composition of classic items (often including components such as sugar, butter or eggs) to that of revisited items (generally containing less components) illustrating the importance of non-nutritional aspects of a food item.
The result that the greater an upgrade is – quantitatively speaking – the more likely it is to be chosen, and the more rapidly it is to be, can also appear intuitive. Nevertheless, the apparent differences in
handling of food item pairs depending on their nutritional difference suggest the potential of future research in food item upgrades and in consumers’ appreciation of the value of these upgrades.
The difference in weighting of the fat attribute compared to other macronutrients for example suggests that a nutritional distance weighting equally all attributes might not be the best metric to translate in a quantitative way the perception of the value brought to a consumer by an upgrade.
Finally, the qualitative aspects of an upgrade are probably equally worthy of interest. Given the suggestion that people perceive differently savory and sweet items or fat-rich and carbohydrate-rich items (Green, 1996), the threshold levels of values brought by an upgrade which necessary to appeal to a consumer are likely to depend on the type of items involved as well as the nutritional
dimensions which are upgraded.
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Revisited Classic Revisited Classic Revisited Classic Revisited Classic Revisited Classic Revisited Classic
Calories 180 209 50 278 350 547 270 358 15 110 32 144
Carbohydrates 15 16 12 69 80 50 22 53 4 6 8 30
Fats 12 15 0 0 0 38 18 15 0 8 0 2
Proteins 2 4 1 0 0 7 3 5 0 3 1 1
Strawberry sherbet
Chocolate mousse Orange marmelade Chips Chocolate cake Tzatziki
Appendix
Appendix A: Food items attributes
Appendix B: One-sample t-test of basic metrics
One-Sample Test Test Value = 0
t df Sig. (2-tailed) Mean Difference 95% Confidence Interval of the Difference
Lower Upper
Completeness 23.053 719 .000 .425 .39 .46
SearchMetric 20.220 719 .000 .363 .33 .40
EqualWeight 33.321 719 .000 .607 .57 .64
Appendix C: Chi-square of basic metrics by choice
Appendix D: Chi-square of favorite weighted attribute by choice
Choice Total
Appendix E: ANOVA of decision time by nutritional distance group
Descriptives
TotalTime
N Mean Std. Deviation Std. Error 95% Confidence Interval for Mean Minimum Maximum Lower Bound Upper Bound
Low Distance 117 20914.75 10682.592 987.606 18958.67 22870.83 2793 74335
Medium Distance 362 11141.42 7196.354 378.232 10397.60 11885.23 535 44859
High Distance 241 13681.66 8536.417 549.879 12598.46 14764.87 557 70261
Total 720 13579.86 8971.557 334.350 12923.44 14236.28 535 74335
Appendix F: ANOVA of nutritional distance by choice
Descriptives NutriDistance
N Mean Std. Deviation Std. Error 95% Confidence Interval for Mean Minimum Maximum Lower Bound Upper Bound
Classic 244 108.1038 61.56371 3.94121 100.3405 115.8671 29.24 235.02
Revisited 476 139.4914 71.33358 3.26957 133.0668 145.9160 29.24 235.02
Total 720 128.8545 69.73964 2.59904 123.7519 133.9571 29.24 235.02
Appendix G: Chi-square of nutritional distance group by choice
NutriGroup * Choice Crosstabulation